This course offers practical, hands-on exposure to a number of social media technologies. Emphasis will be to provide an in-depth understanding of key technical issues involved in managing the technical aspects of social media projects and campaigns from planning through deployment and post-launch maintenance. Students will also gain hands-on experience with popular social media platforms.
Topics include:
Definition, history and classification of social media tools and technologies;
Overview and use cases for several popular social media sites;
Technical overview of the features, differences, prerequisites for use, design and architecture, legal issues, and considerations for selection of open-source, closed-source, commercial, hosted/SaaS, and self-hosted custom solutions;
Data exchange, interoperability, and the roles of RSS, XML, and API’s;
Planning and identifying technical specifications a social media site: understanding audience, selecting features, organizing content, and organizing interaction;
Behind-the-scene technical tour of the code, database, and presentation layers of Drupal, a popular platform for custom social media sites;
Basic configuration, management and customization of specific platforms such as Drupal, Wordpress, MediaWiki;
Requirements and considerations for self-hosted sites: server and hosting requirements, privacy and security issues, database administration and data recovery, migration between systems; patch management and upgrades
Analytics: Measuring site activity, usage, engagement and success
Prerequisites:
Fluency browsing the web
Experience contributing to popular social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.
A simple understanding of what databases are, why they are important, and the role they play in web technologies will suffice. It may be helpful to read the first four sections of this free tutorial: http://awtrey.com/tutorials/dbeweb/database.php (The useful sections are the introduction, What is a Database, How it Works, Security, and MySQL Tools).
For those of you who wish to learn to manage your own social media website, some CSS knowledge will make it possible for you to gain deeper control over the look and feel of a website. To gain more understanding and experience with CSS, see http://webdesign.about.com/od/beginningcss/a/aa021607.htm
Required Textbook
There will be no required textbook for this class. The instructor will provide handouts, links to resources, and lists of supplemental resources throughout the course.
Office Hours: I will be available prior to each class, from 5pm to 6pm, for private discussion or questions. I may not be available outside of my office hours, though you are welcome to send email to me anytime.
Classroom Etiquette
The classroom environment is no exception to common professional courtesy. Please adhere to the following basic guidelines:
Participate deeply in classroom discussions while being mindful of the need for all students to have an opportunity for participation. Help to encourage those who may be more quiet by not dominating the discussion; each individual has something meaningful to contribute.
Be respectful of other students and avoid distracting them and hindering their opportunity to learn.
Be patient and courteous to other students when they ask a question or make a statement, even when the subject may seem obvious to you.
If you must leave early or arrive late, please try to sit near the door. You can move to your preferred location during a class break.
Turn off your cellular phones. If you must, put them on “vibrate” and leave the classroom if you need to take a call.
Assessment Criteria
Students will be assessed based on attendance, class participation, assignments, papers, and project work. Students will be required to attend 8 out of 10 sessions.
Grading
Grading is Pass/Fail based on the following:
Criteria
Explanation
Points
Attendance
Students will be required to attend 8 out of 10 sessions. If you must miss more than two sessions, instructor approval is required and any make-up work must be provided by the beginning of Week 9’s class.
n/a
Participation
In-class participation, including a Twitter back-channel. Consideration will be given to participation between classes via the Twitter feed. Participation points may be docked if etiquette guidelines are not followed.
1 point per week.
10 points
Feedback
Weekly Minute Paper – one-two brief paragraphs about what impacted you in class this week. All comments and feedback are welcome. Written in the last 5 minutes of class and emailed to the instructor before you leave. Emails sent after the end of class will be discarded.
Subject line should read: Last Name Minute Paper Class Date (i.e. Moscheck Minute Paper 1/4)
1 point per week.
10 points
Presentation
Each week, up to two teams of 2 students each will deliver a 15-20 minute presentation about an assigned social media platform. Students will choose how to deliver their presentations (slides are not required). Presentations must cover the following:
Introduction to the tool and what it does (5 points)
At least three reasonable use cases (5 points)
A tutorial of the example website(s) (5 points)
Questions and answers (5 points)
Additional points will be awarded for
Organization and clarity (5 points)
Quality of information, including accuracy and thoroughness (5 points)
Quality of tutorial – did it successfully teach students how to get started using this tool (5 points)
This presentation is a large part of your grade because you will take on the role of teacher to enhance your learning as well as that of your classmates. Please provide your classmates with your best work.
35 points
Hootsuite Dashboard
Students will set up their own Hootsuite dashboard. Specific grading criteria will be provided.
Project due date: 6pm February 22nd
5 points
Analytics Report
Students will be placed into groups and each group will be assigned to a nonprofit agency and given Google Analytics access to their URL.
Each group will work together to:
Interpret the Google Analytics reports and provide a helpful snapshot of your findings along with an interpretation and explanation of the reports;
Review the web URL to further inform your thoughts and understanding of the strengths and weaknesses you encounter;
Develop written recommendations for the agency with ideas for making improvements to the website and/or the social media strategy;
Reports which also include a review of the agency’s social media pages/sites and recommendations for better integrating their web presense with their social media strategy will be awarded bonus points.
>
25 points
Plus up to 10 bonus points
Final Paper
Write a 3-5 page paper that clearly describes which of the social media platforms and tools we covered in class you plan to incorporate into your work (choose your career or hobby), why you would find them useful, and how you would use them.
Bonus points for covering additional tools not covered during class.
Paper due at the start of the final class (March 7)
15 points
Up to 3 bonus points
Homework and Deliverables
Any weekly homework will be completed and handed in no later than 9:00 PM the night before class, unless otherwise announced or agreed upon by the students and the instructors. Students may require an average of up to 6 hours during the week to complete assignments, reading and any additional research.
Class Structure
Each class will:
Open with a brief class discussion of reading assignments from the prior class and any resources shared online or via twitter by students since the last class;
Include a lecture, presentation, or demonstration by the instructor. This will provide students with the necessary exposure to the topics in this course, and is an important aspect of the program. We will be covering a lot of material.
Include up to two student presentations which cover specific types of social media sites and include live demonstrations and question/answer sessions;
Close with the writing of a short “5-minute paper” focused upon insight, discovery, and feedback for each week.
Additionally, classes may include:
Guest speakers
Learning activities, sometimes individual and sometimes group, whenever possible
Class discussion and break-out discussions
Homework assignments and follow-up
Disability Accommodation
The University of Washington is committed to providing access and reasonable accommodation in its services, programs, activities, education and employment for individuals with disabilities. For information or to request disability accommodation contact:
Disability Services Office: 206.543.6450/V, 206.543.6452/TTY, 206.685.7264 (FAX), or e-mail at dso@u.washington.edu.
Topic
Assignment
Week 1 January 4, 6-9 pm
Welcome to Class
Introductions
Overview of course, assignments and expectations.
Define “social media” for the purpose of this course
Group Activity: Social Media Matrix
Review the types of social media sites and features
Social Media Platforms team assignments and sign-up
Homework due January 12:
Sign up for twitter.com and check out the #UWSMC feed
Participation points for finding other cool material about the history and evolution of social media, sharing it on the Twitter feed, monitoring/reading content shared by other classmates, and engaging about it via Twitter or the class discussion to take place January 12.
Compare/contrast the use cases provided for custom and hosted platforms
Consider how business goals impact tech decision-making
Would a custom site be required to accomplish the guest presenter goals? If not, which hosted platforms could be used and how? If yes, why and what features could not otherwise be replicated?
>
Reading Assignments:* TBA
Week 5 Feb 8, 6-9 pm
Planning a Custom Social Media Site
Site audience
Site navigation
Technical requirements
Organizing content
Organizing interaction
Managing a Custom Social Media Site
User management
Content management
Comments & Moderation
SPAM, automated signups, and other malicious use
Technical Considerations
Customization
Licensing
Mobile integration & support
Privacy, security & data
Migrating between systems
Team Presentations - Information
Social news & bookmarks
RSS & Lifestreaming
discussion topics:
- revenue streams affiliate services
- social bookmarking for internal knowledge management
- running contests through pintarest
- marketing your pintarest strategy
Social Media Platform & Tools
Winter Term, 2012Course Objectives
This course offers practical, hands-on exposure to a number of social media technologies. Emphasis will be to provide an in-depth understanding of key technical issues involved in managing the technical aspects of social media projects and campaigns from planning through deployment and post-launch maintenance. Students will also gain hands-on experience with popular social media platforms.Topics include:
Prerequisites:
Recommendations Prior to Class:
Required Textbook
There will be no required textbook for this class. The instructor will provide handouts, links to resources, and lists of supplemental resources throughout the course.
Instructor
Samantha Moscheck
sammoscheck@gmail.comOffice Hours: I will be available prior to each class, from 5pm to 6pm, for private discussion or questions. I may not be available outside of my office hours, though you are welcome to send email to me anytime.
Classroom Etiquette
The classroom environment is no exception to common professional courtesy. Please adhere to the following basic guidelines:
Assessment Criteria
Students will be assessed based on attendance, class participation, assignments, papers, and project work. Students will be required to attend 8 out of 10 sessions.Grading
Grading is Pass/Fail based on the following:1 point per week.
Subject line should read: Last Name Minute Paper Class Date
(i.e. Moscheck Minute Paper 1/4)
1 point per week.
Presentations must cover the following:
- Introduction to the tool and what it does (5 points)
- At least three reasonable use cases (5 points)
- A tutorial of the example website(s) (5 points)
- Questions and answers (5 points)
Additional points will be awarded forThis presentation is a large part of your grade because you will take on the role of teacher to enhance your learning as well as that of your classmates. Please provide your classmates with your best work.
Project due date:
6pm February 22nd
Each group will work together to:
- Interpret the Google Analytics reports and provide a helpful snapshot of your findings along with an interpretation and explanation of the reports;
- Review the web URL to further inform your thoughts and understanding of the strengths and weaknesses you encounter;
- Develop written recommendations for the agency with ideas for making improvements to the website and/or the social media strategy;
- Reports which also include a review of the agency’s social media pages/sites and recommendations for better integrating their web presense with their social media strategy will be awarded bonus points.
>Plus up to 10 bonus points
Bonus points for covering additional tools not covered during class.
Paper due at the start of the final class (March 7)
Up to 3 bonus points
Homework and Deliverables
Any weekly homework will be completed and handed in no later than 9:00 PM the night before class, unless otherwise announced or agreed upon by the students and the instructors. Students may require an average of up to 6 hours during the week to complete assignments, reading and any additional research.
Class Structure
Each class will:
Additionally, classes may include:
Disability AccommodationThe University of Washington is committed to providing access and reasonable accommodation in its services, programs, activities, education and employment for individuals with disabilities. For information or to request disability accommodation contact:
- Introductions
- Overview of course, assignments and expectations.
- Define “social media” for the purpose of this course
- Group Activity: Social Media Matrix
- Review the types of social media sites and features
Social Media Platforms team assignments and sign-upThe History & Evolution of Social Media
A Brief History of Social Media
- Commercial
- Hosted / SaaS
- Self-hosted systems
- Open source systems
- Considerations for selection
Class Surprise ActivityTeam Presentations – Publishing
- Blogging & Microblogging
- Photo & Video-sharing
>- Privacy article
- Cloud computing article
>January 25, 6-9 pm
Chris Tugwell, Puget Soundoff (http://pugetsoundoff.org)
Team Presentations - Networks
- Social & Professional Networks
- Niche Networks
>Feb 1, 6-9 pm
Natasha Friedus, Creative Narrations (http://mappingvoices.org)
Team Presentations - Maps
- Location-based social networks
- Location-based resources
Group Discussions- Compare/contrast the use cases provided for custom and hosted platforms
- Consider how business goals impact tech decision-making
- Would a custom site be required to accomplish the guest presenter goals? If not, which hosted platforms could be used and how? If yes, why and what features could not otherwise be replicated?
>Feb 8, 6-9 pm
- Site audience
- Site navigation
- Technical requirements
- Organizing content
- Organizing interaction
Managing a Custom Social Media Site- User management
- Content management
- Comments & Moderation
- SPAM, automated signups, and other malicious use
Technical Considerations- Customization
- Licensing
- Mobile integration & support
- Privacy, security & data
- Migrating between systems
Team Presentations - Information- Social news & bookmarks
- RSS & Lifestreaming
discussion topics:- revenue streams affiliate services
- social bookmarking for internal knowledge management
- running contests through pintarest
- marketing your pintarest strategy
Differentiating Between Social Media and Community Management
Planning a Custom Web App
Feb 15, 6-9 pm
- Overview of MediaWiki, Wordpress and Drupal
- Server requirements
- Installation and configuration overview
- Behind-the-scenes tour
- The code layer
- The presentation layer
- The database layer
Team Presentation – Crowdsourcing- Knowledge
- Innovation
>Hootsuite Preparation:
Understanding CMS Systems:
http://drupalize.me/videos/understanding-drupal
Feb 22, 6-9 pm
- What and why
- How to use it (demo)
Hootsuite discussion & activity Team Presentations- Presentations & mindmaps
- Branding & design services
>Individual Assignment:
- Set up your Hootsuite Dashboard for your business objectives
* Set up any feeds of interest about social media topics and share with your team matesFeb 29, 6-9 pm
Using Google Analytics:
A popular analytical tool for measuring site activity, usage, engagement, and success
Working sessions:
Break into Analytics assignment teams and build your action plan for completing the homework.
Class discussion and question/answer sessions
Team Presentations – Business- Reviews- Monitoring
DUE TODAY: Hootsuite Dashboard
Mar 7, 6-9 pm
Additional Topics:
* Writing to engage
* SEO topics
One Google Analytics Presentation (10 minutes)
Google Analytics Project Team Huddle (20 m)
Mar 14, 6-9pm
Group Project Presentations:Google Analytics Reports
10 minutes each
Possibly Kred vs Klout, Phelps (10 minutes)
DUE TODAY: Google Analytics project